The invention of the computer and its subsequent incorporation into modern life has resulted
in some alteration of almost every conceivable aspect of our
everday existence.  One of the most
controversial effects of computers is the change they have
brought  to the  highly standardized field of education.  Some
have called computers  the miracle workers and 
the saviors of the future generation.  Others foresee the demise
of classical learning, the negation of all strides made thus
far in education and the future degeneration of society.
  

  Computers, as they apply to education, may be studied in 
two very different functions.  The computer can be seen as either    
a learning tool or as a subject for study itself.  It is in the
former of these capacities that the computer has created so much
controversy.  During the 1960s, when computers were
making their first fledgling attempts at
instruction, the overall national spirit was one of unbounded optimism
about the limits of the technological achievements of mankind.  This
spirit was transfered to the revolutionary idea of using computers in
education.  As
Glyn Holmes reports:@Quotation{In
the 1960s, and even into the early 1970s, an enormous amount of
excitement was generated . . . over the potential of the computer 
as a tool to aid learning.  It was quite confidently predicted
that computer-assisted instruction would soon be an integral part
of . . . classroom procedures.@foot[Glyn Holmes,
"Computer-assisted Instruction: A Discussion
of Some of the Issues for Would-be Implementors, "@i<Educational
Technology,> 22 (Sept., 1982), p. 7.]}   Many people
actuallly believed that in a matter of years, our present system
of education would become obsolete and teachers would
be partially or entirely replaced by computers.  These over-blown expectations were largely responsible for
the subsequent feeling that the computer failed
miserably in improving education when  a decade later, these aims were not only
unrealized, but had not even been attempted.  The title of a very
recent lead article of The New York Times is
evidence to the deflation of these unrealistic expectations: "Computers, in Most Schols, Have Brought No
Revolution".@foot[Edward Fiske, @i'The New York Times' (Dec. 9,
1984), p. 1.]
The problem with these predictions was that they were
based on intuition and hypotheses rather than knowledge, logic
and sound reasoning.  

Before any attempt to analyze the aptitude
or success of computers in education, the goal of the computer in
the educational process must be defined.
Education is a very old and, by its nature, a very
traditional discipline.
Those  who had a realistic conception
of the existing system of education, along with a good knowledge of computers, hence their
potential use in instruction, never predicted an immediate
'revolution' in the field.  In 1969, Anthony Oettinger published
what is now considered to be the classic study on   
the use of computers in education.  In his book, @u(Run, Computer,  
Run), he states:@quotation[The formal educational sy